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Sunday, April 29, 2018

This has been a year of change and we have included work nominated during our Monday night sessions. In preparing for the next issue in 2019, we are using a guestbook to collect emails from which we will solicit each poet for their favorite piece among the work they have written.One-Owner Vehicle by Gary Turchin

The Vision is God’s,the eyes, mine;The Voice, God’s,throat, mine;Flavor, God’s,tongue, mine;Texture, God’s,fingers mine;Breath, God’s,lungs, mine;Perfume, God’s,nose, mine;Love is God’s,heart, mine;Thoughts are God’s,neurons, mine;Divine Spark is God’s,candle, mine.The Muse, God’s,this poem…mine?When my father was alive by Gary Turchin When my father was alive,the world was made of car dealerships and bowling alleys.The alleys had 100 lanes each and parking lots out front that could hold 200 big American cars without breaking a sweat.When my father was alive,cars were so big they had their own zip codes, though there were no zip codes back then, so they named them after places that would have zip codes one day:Chrysler New Yorker, Chevy Malibu, Pontiac Bonneville, Dodge Sierra.When my father was alive,there was a bomb shelter store right next to the bowling alley, with a bomb shelter that looked like a giant tin can laying on its side out front.Me and my cousin Jeff would go into the bomb shelter on our walk to the bowlingalley. It smelled moldy and metallic inside. We’d imagine the Ruskies pushing thebutton, and us safely canned away while the world outside toasted and burned.Then we’d finish our walk to the alleys, kick off our canvas sneakers and donthose stinky tricolor leather ones they made you rent for a quarter when you bowled. I hated those shoes, and their chemical smells, but I loved to bowl. So did my father. When he got a new bowling ball and shoes—I guess they were sold together—he passed the old ones on to me. The shoes still smelled, but at least it was a smell I was familiar with. Odd how my fingers and feet were close enough in size to his by then to do a credible job for me. I think I had a 152 bowling average, or was that my father’s average? Can’t remember now, but I do remember that our coed bowling team was called “Turchin & his Mistakes.” You can imagine how good my team was. Nancy G., skinny as a blade of grass, could barely pick up a ball, nevertheless hurl it, under control down the alley. Her specialty was gutter balls. She was an expert at gutter balls. We’d be lucky if her score added up to 13 or 23 after the full 10 frames. We didn't care. We were just having fun, and if the world had ended tomorrow, what would her bowling score matter? On the way home from the alleys, Jeff and I would stop back into the bomb shelter, hoping the Ruskies hadn’t made any “mistakes” with their bombs, dropped some into a gutter, hoping to even out some perceived score.When my father was alive,we lucked out: the Ruskies never did.When my father was alive,there was a miniature golf course around the corner from the bowling alley and bomb shelter store. One year they built a second miniature golf course right next door to the old one. The new one was named after Arnold Palmer, the most famous golfer in the world. You could golf at either course, for the same 50 cents, but we stuck to the new Arnold Palmer one that whole summer. He was so famous and all, and we’d played the old course for years.When my father was alive,the world was made of golf courses and swimming pools.When I was 13, my father drove me and the Gardner brothers, Mitchell andHarlan, in his Chrysler New Yorker to Ashbrook Golf Course to play our first round of real golf…Dad didn't play golf then, though he took it up eventually, after he’d had his fill with bowling and bowlers. Would pass more than one set of golf clubs and golf shoes on to me over the upcoming years; again, we were close enough in size to be a match.When my father was alive,no one we knew, or knew of, ever bought one of those tin can bomb shelters.Never saw one in any back yard or side yard or saw one supplant a swimming pool that were becoming so popular in yards in those days. I guess people decided they were better off boiling to death in a pool than frying to death in a tin can. The store that sold the shelters didn't survive a year, but the model stood out front, sealed so we couldn't get inside of it anymore, for years. A monument to its own folly.

Never eat a mango in proper companyby Gary TurchinBetter to eat it aloneunconstrained by manners or etiquetteleaning over the compost bindripping its honey-juiceover rotting husks of corn,soggy asparagus spears,empty egg shells,while tearing its smooth skin off in strips with your dirty fingernailsthat grow sticky and wet with the sweet orange drizzlenow oozing over everythingyour chincheekbeardhands tongue lipsand down your welcoming throateven over your crisp white shirtwhose orange stain will long remind you—even while dining with more formal company—of your private summit with the Mango God.

MAYDAY in AMERICA! by
Gary Turchin

AMERICA:

This is your distress call:

MAYDAY! MAYDAY!

Your alarm bells
are sounding, America.

Can you hear? are you deaf?

too numb? too dumb? to notice

your proud ship of
state listing?

ready to fall
over like one of those great trees in your primeval forest

Don’t mistake it for your freedom bells…America

or your Liberty Bell

it's a distress call,

MAYDAY! MAYDAY!

All hands on
deck, America,

Launch the flares!

Broadcast our coordinates:

UNITED STATES of AMERICA;

Year of Our Lord,
2017;

At sea,
LOST.

But whatever you do America: don't abandon this ship.

Don't even think about it

Stay and fight,

like men do, like women do,

to the death, if need be,

Don’t abandon this ship.

Its beacon of light

Shining house on the hill

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

MAYDAY! MAYDAY!

There’s mayhem aboard this good ship,

the mad captain has lost his grip

(if he ever really had it)

The corporate pit bulls and their military lap dogs

march in lockstep,

eat their own
young to feed their greed,

MAYHEM! MAYHEM!

The Orange Ogre, King of Mayhem,

leading us over a cliff,

Washington’s ship

Jefferson’s

Hamilton’s

Even Abe Lincoln’s ship!

Over the cliff

Oh Captain, my Captain,

Gone mad as a
hatter,

Our flag and
ideals,

Torn and
tattered!

All hands on deck!

Launch the goddamn flares!

Send out the distress call!

America the beautiful,

God shed his grace
on thee,

and crowned thy
good with brotherhood,

From sea to
shining sea

MAYHEM! MAYDAY!

MAYHEM! MAYDAY!

Get your bloody hands on this deck!

and fight for this ship!

Like your life depended on it,

‘cause your life as you know it, does.

Whatever you do,
don't abandon this ship,

One Nation under
siege,

Divisible

Without
liberty or justice for all,

With plenty of guns guns guns guns,

for everyone a gun!

The madness, like cancer,

neither the Supreme Court nor Congress

can provide the answer,

It’s up to us, good seamen and sea-woman

don't abandon this ship

don't abandon this ship

whatever you do:

don't abandon this ship

MAYDAY!

MAYDAY!

MAYDAY!

Things
not to discuss with your hummingbirdby Gary
Turchin

* Your difficult childhood. Hummingbirds could care less about your angry father or distant Mother, nor how you have grown, over the years, to be more and more like them. Hummingbirds are not your therapists.* Your career goals. Hummingbirds don't care about who or what you want to be, nor when you want to be it. A Hummingbirds only ambition is to find and savor sweet flower nectar. * How much your house cost when you bought it, or how much it’s worth today. Hummingbirds will fly off at the first mention of the price of anything.* Where you went to college. Hummingbirds don't go to college (or any school for that matter). Why would they care which school you went to? * What you think of the current political climate, or the President? Congress? Governor? Mayor? Hummingbirds don't vote and wouldn't even if they could. It’s not power they’re after, but flowers.* How many kids, grandkids, great grandkids you have. Hummingbirds don't keep track of their own progeny, why would they want to keep track of yours?* What day the city picks up your garbage. Hummingbirds don’t make garbage, don’t even understand the concept of garbage. Why would they need to know about your pickup day? * Ditto, street sweeping day, and which side of the street you have to avoid parking on. Hummingbirds park wherever the hell they want to park, and don’t have streets to sweep. (See reference to “garbage” above.)* What kind of art you like. Hummingbirds don't much like art in any form or style. They've got their beaks stuck in fresh, budding flowers, day in, day out. Why would a mere picture of a flower be of interest to them?* And if you should mention humming, be on guard. They can get apoplectic when someone tries to talk to them about humming. Trust me, don’t go there, unless you have an interest in having one of your eyeballs pierced by a Hummingbird beak.* How much you wish you could fly just like them, stopping midair and all. Do you have any idea how many times they've been told that, and how sick of hearing it they are? We, with our giant metal flying ships, stinking up their air, disquieting the quiet they so cherish. No, I wouldn't bring up flying if I were you.Well, you may ask, what topics can you discuss with your hummingbird? Good question, now you’re thinking. You can’t actually discuss anything with hummingbirds. They have no interest in conversation. That’s an absolute. Soon as you open your mouth, they’ll be gone. But if you wish to cultivate a relationship with a Hummingbird, try bribing it (yes they gladly accept bribes in the form of flowers, especially long tubular, bright colored flowers, red ones in particular.) Keep your gardens lush with such flowers and you and your hummingbird can share many happy, and quiet, seasons together. Save your talking for your dog, partner, or spy agency of choice.

Gary Turchin is the author/illustrator of the wondrous, If I Were You (Simon DeWitt 2011, and the award-winning Ditty-Ditty Doggerel; A life From Bad to Verse (Simon DeWitt, 2012). His newest collection of poems, Falling Home, was published in 2013 by Sugartown Publications. See http://www.garyturchin.net for these offerings and more.

Gary is also performance artist, poet, and illustrator. His children’s poetry show, Gary T. & his PoetTree, has been performed in more than 300 schools and libraries throughout California.

To see/hear and learn more about Gary, see the documentary film about his life’s journey, The Healthiest Man On Earth at http://youtu.be/craVH8mzpuQ .Gary is also a Poetry Express Berkeley host on the 4th Mondays of each month.

The Fall by Jan SteckelI don't want to be Joan of the Narrative Arc here,

wielding my flaming sword of story to drive youfrom my personal bleeding-heart-liberal paradise,but here's a prompt: write a poem using the wordsgrant, bell, garner, brown, ford, and rice.Employ a light touch, no sing-song or doggerel.No sentimentality, please. No rants.Attention to form but not formality.Invoke all the senses. Let me see, hear, feelwhat the twelve-year-old saw, heard, feltwaving that BB gun around the park.The gold and orange leaves of Cleveland.The smell of them rotting in rainwater.The black-and-white pulling to the curb.The crack. The pavement rushing up."The Fall" first appeared in The New Verse News

Jan Steckel is a former pediatrician who stopped practicing medicine
because of chronic pain. Her poetry book The
Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011) won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award.
Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks
(Gertrude Press, 2009) and poetry chapbook The
Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) also won awards. Her fiction
and poetry have appeared in Scholastic
Magazine, Yale Medicine, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her work
was nominated three times each for the Pushcart and Sundress Best of the Net
anthologies, won the Goodreads Poetry Contest twice, and won various other
awards. She lives in Oakland, California.

A.I.D.S by Elaine BrownHe was too afraid to let anybody know what he was going throughBut after a while we pretty much knew but all I could do

Elaine Brown: I have been writing ever since my Mother and siblings taught me how to hold a pen. I grew up listening to the stories my Grandmother and Mother would tell me about my family and their struggles wondering how I could change things. So, history and writing became my passion. I have been writing Free Style Poetry for almost 30 years combining past and present issues that affect our daily lives; motivating people to change their mindsets.

AS YOU WERE by Jennifer BlowdryerAfrican - no white jacketchilly perhaps taking too longmaking the soda. Eyes still

Jennifer Blowdryer, who loves the food at Taste of the Himalayas, is a writer and performer whose next book, 86ed, is out in snippet previews form on Pedestrian Press. She divides her time between Berkeley and New York's East Village.

Bang Bang Niner Gang by Cassandra Dallett

If you grew up in San Francisco you remember when Joe Montana ruledprobably rocked a red satin Forty NinerStarter a time or twowhen wins filled the drunken streets with revelrywhen Ocean Beach filled that rare hot dayyou probably remember that we always protested herethat the police were dicks but they didn’t kill usall the of the timeThis town was a Forty Niner townworking class and freak filled with hippies and punk rockersblack panthers browncholos and gay pride and all of us living side by sidethese days you’ll get called a gang bangerfor wearing the color of your hometeamIn the park where you grew upthe white boy calls you outhis dog chasing you and your foodthe white boy moved herewith the blizzard of whites who stand in linelate into the night to eat burritosMr. Snow ain’t from herebut is so comfortable in his whitenesshe says red jacket makes you a gang membercalls homeless disgustingcalls you wet backyour family has been here longer than he’s been bornThere are only white folks in the park nowthey are new and white and owningbuildings burned to make way for the crop of themthey call the police on youthe firing squadwithout questionempties clipsreloads59 shotsyour 49er jacket blood redfull of holesyou are one more nameto be chantedin the streetswe no longer recognizeI know the police have always worked for the richthe war on drugs was always about locking brown people up,and why all these prisons are builtBut I swear this town didn’t used to be so meanThe newspaper doesn’t mention that you went to school had never been arrestedthe newspaper said you were agitatedthreateningthere are wordsthat start with a Tthug and threatthere are trialspolice are never charged at trialsWhite people keep on comingand coming pointing us out pushing us outto the edges like animalsto them we are bangers we are beggarswe are tent city trash makerswe the former tenants of San Franciscodead in jail sleeping under the freewayout here somewherebetween Stockton and the grave

Love
is Unruly

by Cassandra Dallett

Dark and early

mourning your face,

a rough cheek-soft kiss,

your neck.

I’m crying in the car.

On podcast the artist

speaks of painting black bodies,

of fame and ego.

I think of all the colors in your skin.

How I long to polish the red tones

sandalwood sweet.

The artist has the last name

of a man who beat me up.

You would never hurt me

but I am hurt by you

brilliant and incarcerated

braggadocio should be yours.

Art is your bone structure. I think

about your wrist that small mark of beauty

you rising to the hoop

intelligence that transmits physically even,

unlike my own awkward.

And still, you get me.

You got me, I consider jailhouse marriage

a future of separation.

Isn’t that what it’s always been?

Whichever two people

locked up by fear

and capitalism.

The artist speaks of desire.

You and me

we see each other

ageless

and without shame.

Goat Cheese Is an Abomination by Cassandra DallettThe door was heavy, a loop of twine as a handleI often struggled withfalling backwards on the wooden rampworrying the fat-sacked grey speckled barn spiders overheadafraid they would lower onto my headand the goats running from the barnespecially Bucket with the biggest hornsthe meanest disposition.They had goats that chased kids,and adults that found it amusing.At Sweet Peas’ houseIt was hard to get so much as a drink of waterhaving to stand on something to pump.The bathroom was the whole outdoors-no outhouse, or bucket, no electric light, or lanternjust grab toilet paper by the door and find a spotaway from the goats and the spiders to shit or piss safely.Which meant surely holding it all night longand not adding bed wetter to the embarrassment.Each night I sobbed I wanna go home, I want my Mom till dawn.At home when I thought about spiders I loud-criedtill mom turned a light on.Here there were no lights and there was no Mom.Sweet Pea’s mother wasn’t tender like that with meShe’d say, why did you bring her? she cries every time!The dark was vast sleeping on the pine floorunable to see the ceilings bumpy plasterwindows framed with splintery grey woodterrible branches swaying in the pitch-black night.There was nowhere to runit was all fun when we left my house twenty miles awayI had someone wanting to play with me,wanting my company, when the adults were all stonedglazed nods of agreement when I asked could I goI’d fall asleep riding up over Eagle Hollowrolling puppy bodied down tree lined roadsand up up the hill a running startfoot smashing gas pedal to floorfrom Don’s house where the mailbox wasand the nearest telephone was,up the steep part fishtailing, gravel flying against the carjust when it seemed we wouldn’t make itwe’d be barreling across the flat partwhere the puzzle grass grew and the stone wallled to the gas tank, we rode like a horse.The trees parted at the dooryardand the house tucked in there like a wicked witch.Each time I remembered the terror freshlyas if brainwashed to do it againthe barn spiders in the woodshedyou had to walk through to get into the houseThe whole family, her family, Sweet Pea’s family,laughing at me, the scared onejust five or six years old.When thirsty eyes fixed on the huge mayonnaise jars of milkI made the mistake of expecting cold cow milkinstead the gamey shit taste of goat filling my mouthcausing me to retch.Inescapable fleshy and warm like their teats,scary like their horns,impossible to get from my mouth.The dirty taste of animalsthat ransacked the housestrewing clothes as they munched,knocking jars of food to the floorand spreading it around while shittingand giving side eye, a fuck you, but more sinister.I’m gown now, the goat guy is my step-dad,they’ve long since got electricity and running waterI love a Thousand-day-gouda almost as much as sex,but people, please, what’s with all the goat cheese?I don’t want it on my salad or looking tempting on baguette,goat milk tastes like helplessness and fear,like licking the barn’s dirt floor, the twitching tail and shifty eye.Don’t, talk to me about goats, or goat yoga,or goat cheese, even if it has a creamy French name!Cassandra Dallett lives in Oakland, CA. Cassandra writes of a counter culture childhood in Vermont and her punk rock adolescence in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has been publishedwidely online and in print magazines such as Slip Stream, Sparkle and Blink, Criminal Class Review, Chiron Review and Out Of Our. A full-length book of poetry Wet Reckless will be released from Manic D Press in the spring of 2014.COMPOTE YOURSELF by David ErdeichWe seek perfection

Because it doesn't existExactitude yesThe monk copies the bibleThe rabbi copies the TorahIt must be copied exactly as writtenOr else you're required to start over againBut if every language hasA different word for the same thoughtHow do you represent that on the page?What if your diacritical remarkIs given the wrong color?What if some languages haveThoughts that others lack?If it's an object I can use thought transferenceTo send the word picture from my mind to yoursBut what if it's a conceptWhat if I can only FEEL the elephant in the dark?How do I put inflection,Or genuflection for that matter, on the page?Homonyms are humbling as well as hobblingPuns are everywhereLegs akimbo, arms akiddoI kid you notIf we can't play with the languageDoes it become a charade?The brine leading the brineDown some vinegary path to deluction?I'm going to give you some spaceTo taste your words, rinse, spit them outMisspell your misspent youthUnbend your genderLest it bounce off your freddy fender guitarStrum and drang your words through the meyer lemonAnd discuss disgust with the same windy aplombYou usually preserve to fritter your apples away1. APPLE STORE by David ErdeichA toy store for adults; a way to diddle without the piddle; the toy hasbecome the shrine because of its beautiful shine. Any fool wheninstructed can make correct use of the tool. Only the idiot, unableto rise above it, to get rid of it, makes an altar of it. Extract thoseprecious plumes, assemble the multiple rooms, descend into itsabyss, to wait for Siri's kiss. For she will absorb your fluid, thisfeminine modern day druid. She'll return your feet to root, screenyou off from your loot, void you to empty space, then artificiallyreplace your binary applique with new face and brand new day.In the belly of the beast you stay, face electrocution if you stray.Science Fiction predicted this plight 50 years ago. A plug for theback of every human nape in order to transit the grid landscape.Matrix, matriarch, iphone, padrone--you cannot feel you cannotmoan. Your gaze is flat, your eyes are glazed. Dimensions squared,awareness raised. You don't drink yet here's the djinn to twist yourinnards from within. Hurricanes will inundate, rising seas approachthe state of the art of fools. Political disaster, fascist fear. Localordinance thus explodes, people ignored, instructed in code. Inorder to decipher declare yourself a lifer. Pardon racists, decryimmigration, imaginary borders, enforced segregation. Three ormore black men can't stand on the street and practice politicswithout the cop on the beat feeling fear, feeling threatenedapproaching with gun and stick. Freedom of assembly is fineif you are white, but the difference is as clear as day and night.If it's for ALL, then heed the call--get the principle right.2. WATERFRONT PROPERTY by David ErdeichThey sold you waterfront property at thrice the price. Itincluded a mother-in-law in the backyard. Earthquake, flood,or termite insurance costs extra--double! Hurricanes, tsunami,rise of water around the globe, Ah yes, waterfront property!--drowning insurance not available.David Erdeich: Combine the sensibilities of a stand-up comic

Georgette
Howington is a UC Davis California Naturalist of the Mt. Diablo Region. Her poems are published in Iodine, Sleet, Poeming
Pigeons, among others. Her poems won
Honorable Mentions at the North American Women’s Music Festival, Ina Coolbrith
Poetry Contest in 2016 and the Benicia Love Poem Contest 2018. As a horticulturist, her niche is Backyard
Habitat and secondary-cavity nesters.
She is a County Coordinator and the Assistant State Program Director for
the California Bluebird Recovery Program and an activist in the conservation
community in the SF Bay Area for over 30 years.
Georgette is also a published garden and environmental writer.

Dundee by Jack O'Neill

The north west sky brings morninglight through the windowI am as far north as I've ever beenand this morning strike furtherNorth to Dundee, birth place ofmy father's father.It will be a journey of connectionand forgiveness between--To heal the space between--himand me. Me, the life headed southbound on a west bound train;Him, William John Dorotheus O'Neill,not a warm and friendly man.Of course there are reasons. From theperspective of a life is a single thing,The reason is no respect for the spacebetween; and then, terror of thespace between.This morning the bird is on the branchand I go through the spaceThis morning the sage is in the airand I go north to Dundee.Jack O'Neil: In the school year '55/'56, I attended kindergartens in Berkeley, Chula Vista, and San Diego, CA. One through eight I attended Catholic schools in Honolulu, HI, Takoma Park, MD, and San Francisco, CA. And three high schools in northern Illinois. At my fourth college, somewhat near graduation and looking ahead, realizing I was more suited to a random sort of life; I shifted into shiftlessness and the rewards thereof, finding a kind of stability there.

an old woman who does not sell rice cakes by elana levyi am an old woman who does not sell rice cakes-though that might be more honorable-selling instead ideas words books poems

anger resistance rebellion rageunknowingknowing it is unknownknowing the should of knowing the momentknowing something is terribly wrong, thatresisting reality is futileit is soyet ragingknowing raging is unholy.i am an old woman who does not sell rice cakes-not even tomatoes from her garden or shawls loom spun,who flings out to strangers and loved ones: how come?whose teachers say: so it isas God has wrought,who's learned of love for alland nods assent,yet does not know how to go on.i am an old woman who does not sell rice cakesnor tomatoes not even Yes'sthough easier to sell than No's,surrounded by flowering plantsredwoods with their coneschickadee cheepshummmming birdsgracedwow-ing alongasking how it happened.this old woman who does not sell rice cakesnor tomatoes not even home-baked bread,whose money pays for the death machinehonestly, can not smell the stench of rotting-burnt corpses ofmanned-unmanned-drone-killed childrencannot hear the doomed pigs' squeals in unmoveable cratescannot see through unopenable dungeon gates ofFlorence SuperMax or Guantanamoand has never tasted the fumes of Bhopal or Chernobylor even Louisiana's waters where so-called-BP's oilfrom platform fled.i am an old woman who does not sell rice cakesnor tomatoes nor shoes made from tire treadsrefuses to play games on demandas i am an old womangiven leewaysome no-way-you-can-harm-me placefree as a bird in a roomy cagelarger than most.i am an old woman who does not sell rice cakesnor tomatoes not even broadsides,who struggles to stand tallpressed against the icy cold jagged-glass-topped concrete wallof Callousness, Greed and Big Lies.i am an old woman who does not sell rice cakeswho, at times, standsstillbeside her stall.

elana levy is a recent transplant to the land of her daughter, of avocados and redwoods, from the northeast, of snow, lakes and green.

Elana taught math in community college for two decades. first photographed by FBI in 1959. Student and teacher of Jewish meditation and Kabbala; factory worker, social justice activist, radio producer, video director; embraces silence one month yearly.

still studying hard, knowing there's no easy answers.

epiphany by Charles McCauley

godi wish i could writeas good as that girlwalkspataphysics by Charles McCauleyyesterday coming down the stairsI met a woman who wasn’t thereshe wasn’t there again todayif this interests youyou are lost

C O McCauley is a retired naval
aviator, has fronted a rockabilly band and performed in community theater. His songs and poetry about growing up
southern, the Viet Nam War, and Native
American culture have appeared in The Tule Review, California Quarterly,
The Aurorean, Blue Unicorn, and Soundzine. He resides in Martinez, California.

Hello, Paradise [[PART TWELVE]] by Clive Matson

Hello, paradise. Paradise,
good-bye.

Stand in the hurricane

and stare
it in the eye.

Contrails write obituaries across the sky.

Hello, science that reveals how long it took to get here.

Hello, science guessing how long we’ve got left.

Thirteen-point-eight billion years to conceive

protons, neutrons, electrons, photons, black holes,
neutrinos,

Boson particles. Thirteen point eight billion

plus a few years to find them.

Thirteen-point-eight billion

to evolve the mind that can calculate those years

from the Big Bang to now. Thirteen-point-eight billion
years

nuclear science, nuclear medicine, nuclear magnetic
resonance.

Thirteen-point-eight billion years

nuclear bombs.

“Forgive me, Gaia, for I have sinned.

I forgot to breathe with the one

who all day breathes for me.”

“Nuclear Free Zone” sign at Oakland town limits,

swords word by word hammered into ploughs

and the ground tilled across wood tables,

seeds planted and signs crop up around the cactus apple

at Vista’s limits, Berkeley’s,
Fairfax’s, Sebastopol’s

though it’s very late.

Loaded
trucks stop at the gate

and nuclears waft in unabated,

hot ions in air, water, soil, food, cars, construction
material

uncontested, walk blithely in

in
our own bodies unmolested.

Talk to the hand. Talk to the hand.

Plow and plant the seed. Till the ground and plant the
seed.

How many destruction atoms reside in us?

How
many radioactive? Psychoactive? Physioactive?

One cup
water dispersed globally

puts twelve hundred molecules in every cup in your body.

How much uranium-235

from
several metric tons

global militaries parked in our biosphere?

Don’t count. You don’t want to know.

Uranium-235 one times
ten-to-the-minus-seven

percent body mass,

at 80 kilograms

twelve thousand eight
hundred uranium-235 atoms

decay in your body every
minute, forty-four million,

nine hundred ninety nine
thousand a day. A snippet.

The menu: we offer tuna fish fillet in several flavors:

Three Mile Island, Columbia River, Chernobyl,
Fukushima.

Would you like condiments?
Cesium-137? Plutonium-240,

iodine-131, radium,
curium-245, strontium-90, radon? Any of the others?

Add collagen,

petrol vapors, sugar,
mono-sodium-glutinate,

high fructose corn syrup,
propylene glycol,

carboxymethylcellulose,
parabens, polysorbate-80,

nicotine smoke,
genetically modified whatevers,

half your meds and the
rest.

Any of the rest.

The list longer than your arm.

Longer than a snake skin.

Longer than a tapeworm.

Longer than my rap sheet.

Longer than your list of petro-fucking-chemicals.

Feed me. Feed me tastes so I won’t grok my own.

Putting our immune system
to the test.

Knowledge ramps up the
stress

and we become more friable.

Less deniable. More
susceptible. More pliable.

Rev up the immune system

one times
ten-to-the-seventh power

and you have a
chance.

Against a dozen-plus
million mutations a day.

And counting.

How strong the immune
system

must be! How untired,
refired, inspired,

how required for moderate
health

otherwise
we’re dead.

Yesterday.

Happy go lucky! Sing a
song.

How could we go so
terribly wrong?

Our paradise. Evolved for
us. Paradise here and now.

The universe is bio
generative

and slightly benevolent

otherwise we’re
dead.

Yesterday.

Stay healthy. Work soft.
Be cheerful. Get fit. Stay loving. Be cool.

Five mutations will a cancer cell create.

One atom plutonium provides for eight

and will suffice

better than ice.

Now we know how cancer cells originate.

Our worst enemy is our own government.

“Yellow rose, naked tree….

It’s what I see, they bloom for me.”

Medical apparatus swings on line

when health teeters, oncologists, mammograms,

chemo- and immune-system therapy,

nuclear magnetic imaging, isotope scans,

radiation machines.

“No, no! Don’t
tell the doctor

you have insurance! Into your blood

he’ll pour a super-expensive drug.”

Eight hundred fifty thousand dollars

average cost for cancer treatment.

Both hands on the deal. More money to steal.

“The comfort of the rich

depends on the abundance of the poor.”

Thirteen-point-eight billion years

to create this moment.

Thirteen-point-eight billion years

for this plutonium, this uranium, this dispersal of hot
ions,

these atom bombs, neutron bombs, fusion bombs.

Thirteen-point-eight billion years

for this immune system, these T-cells,

this over-revved defense system

holding its own in subcutaneous battles every minute.

Thirteen-point-eight billion years for this minute.

For the
next. And the next.

Thirteen-point-eight billion years

until
the instant

your immune system goes down. Overwhelmed.

Plant the seed. Plow and plant the seed.

“Be joyful, even when you see the facts.”

Hello, paradise. Paradise,
good-bye.

Clive Matson hung with the Beats in New York City in the
early 1960s and he reconnected when he performed “Hello, Paradise. Paradise,
Good-bye” at the European Beat Studies Network in 2017 in Paris. The passionate
intensity that runs through us all emerged on a backpacking trip in the
southern Sierra when he saw trees and mountains and smoke from a wild fire –
and began that poem. He won the 2003 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles National
Literary Award and the City of Berkeley Lifetime Achievement award in poetry
for 2012. Visit him at matsonpoet.com or wikipedia.

In Memoriam by Elizabeth AlfordThe distance from one endof the wall to the other is morethan she can measure. The names

are more than she can count.She remembers handing in the paperwith its hair-in-the-drain signature:a form allowing her to boardthe familiar yellow busfor the second time that morning.She remembers the crack in her seat;how she squirmed for the entirestomach-rolling ride,

sank further and furtherinto the cotton stuffing; howthe corners of the torn vinyldug deep into her legas the streets and trees outside blurred by.Now, as she stands before the wall,wisps of blonde hair tickling her cheek,she wishes she were back on that bus.Or back in the classroom.Or warm at home.Or anywhere but here.Her grandfather, she has been told,is somewhere on this wall.A man she has never met.A man she never will meet.A man who wasn’t therefor birthdays and Christmasesand Easter Sunday dinners.A man who never gave her anythingto remember him by.There is a heaviness hereshe lacks words to describe.Miss Stevens shows themhow to make a rubbing. The studentssnatch at art supplies, squabbling overwho gets what color crayonand how many.But one girl hangs back, squintingat the wall, taking in each name,searching, searchingfor the familiar set of letters spelling outthe only connection she hasto a stranger.Only when the other childrenare furiously scrubbing at their own papersdoes she step forward.She will remember this day,years from now: walking the lengthof the dark wall; finding the name soonerthan she’d hoped. White on black,just like the others.She will remember this moment—reaching outfor her grandfather’s name, reaching upto a height she would someday attain,rubbing a pink crayon over a piece of paper,watching the familiar white letters appear.

Eight-Legged Salemby Elizabeth Alford

Sometimes I want to watch it burn

Watch it burn and fall to the ground

A heap

Of twitching legs

And swollen thorax

Swallowed by flames

Of fear

And uncertainty

Sometimes I want to watch it burn

This spider I cannot name

I cannot see

Glinting in the sun's rays

Hidden for half the night

And all of the day

Behind the backyard speaker

Hung unused

For so many years

Dusty and forgotten

You too, Spider, may one day be

Dusty and forgotten

When the remnants

Of your unfailing armor

Shed only

In the dead of night

Fails you at last

When the lamplight

Goes out

For the last time

You too, Spider

May feel fiery tongues

Lick your feet

Like the women and men

Of centuries past

Bound to stakes

Forsaken

More kindling

Fuel for the fires

Of fear

With one flick of this lighter

Gripped tight

Between bone-chilled fingers

I think

I could be rid of you

Forever

Rid of fear

Rid of uncertainty

Rid of an evil that even now covers

This world

A tangled web of silk

Amid the brambles

Rid of the unknown

That lurks in the shadows

And waits

But then I remember

You are not evil

You are simply

Here

As I am

No

I will not condemn you to the fire

To the abandon of Death

Who even now sits at your side

And waits

I will not call you a witch

I will pocket my lighter

And take my leave

This mission to kindle

The fire within

To watch it all burn

To watch harsh rain

Wash our remnants away

This fire within

No lighter can spark

No wind can extinguish

---

Train of Thoughtby Elizabeth Alford

The 10:08 train rumbles by, headed south.

I step outside, beyond the boundaries of safety,

into comfortable darkness: my front porch.

The rain has been unceasing lately,

but seems to have let up for the moment.

I don't turn the light on as I leave.

Out of habit, I look up into the shadowed corner

of the dripping awning, just above the door,

where the long-empty wasp nest conceived

from mud and who-knows-what-else still sits.

With lighter in hand, I become Prometheus:

bringer of light and fire in dark times

for humanity. And these are dark times.

These are dark times, my friend, I want to call

to the young man across the street, lighting

his own smoke. The end glows. I see a thousand

possibilities contained in that unhinging fire—

in the flick of the wrist, in the falling ash,

in the bitter taste of the future.

The future has always been hazy, at least to me.

Even a wasp has some sense of purpose, can see

the bigger picture. The compound eyes—

those probably help. It's comforting to know that

even a wasp, infinitesimal in the scope

of the universe, can see in all directions.

I can barely see in one direction: forward.

I'm standing outside in the dark and wet,

watching a stranger, smoking a cigarette—now,

thinking about poems that haven't been accepted yet,

waiting for the familiar rumble

of the next train.

More than anything, it's the silence

that's killing me.

---

Little Tonguesby Elizabeth Alford

Regrets are best served

on a bed of cold linguine.

Regrets are red, saucy, spicy.

Regrets are the ripe tomatoes we picked,

each containing a vast richness

and fullness of flavor when left to simmer

for a few minutes, hours, days. You see,

the years of disappointments are

the recipe, and we remember regret

every time we taste it.

A spoonful here: the sprout

of youth, putting down roots,

how leaves spring to unfold.

A spoonful there: a pair of green

lovers sunbathing, ripening

red, still growing. A spoonful

in autumn, when we go to harvest

what we've learned. And in winter,

we pull out our stored-up regrets

from the back of the freezer,

thaw them out. Heat them

on the stove. Stir them

constantly. Serve them up

over cold linguine.

Go on, eat up, we all say,

regret dripping from our tongues,

our lips, our drooping chins.

It wrinkles our brows,

stretches our clothes, stains

our souls. But, perhaps

even regret has its place

on our plates. It tickles our senses

like a pollinated breeze, memory

after memory rising like steam

from the earth after a night of rain,

or like a tomato vine tied to a stake.

We all need that stake at first.

We all need that taste.

We all need the recipe for regret.

So go on, eat up.

And maybe someday,

try cooking it for yourself.

Spice it up while you can.

---

Musings on the Museby Elizabeth Alford

I.

Like I told my other lovers

before they vanished like lamplight

at the end of the night,

“I don’t want to be the book

that you pick up occasionally

when the uncertain fancy

strikes you, like your hand

across my face.”

See, I’m not a hardcover. In fact,

I’m barely a paperback.

If you twist my pages, they will tear.

I wish I could call myself published, but

I’m a notebook on the shelf,

collecting dust.

II.

I think of cavemen painting walls

and hieroglyphed Egyptian halls,

of words inscribed with quill

and ink on scrolls…

But you are a disease.

A bacterial contagion, a cancer

without remission, a virus in its infinite

mutations. I am infected

by you and your misplaced

intentions; first you torture me

with dreams of novel fame

and fortune—then make me a poet.

III.

But it’s not you, it’s me.

I am finite.

I will one day return

to the waters our ancient scaled

ancestors crawled from. I will lift

myself, limb over limb, always push-

ing forward, however much

my body may flop

in protest.

In this ever-expanding, ever-

contracting

universe, I am yet another

beating heart,

another set of lungs, expanding

and contracting

‘til I expand

and contract

no more.

IV.

Long after we are gone,

I will still have these words—

like a field’s worth of sun

or an iridescent sea

of golden grasses glinting,

waving, bending with the breeze

that shuffles clouds too

on a blue-sky day,

giving rise to Rorschachs

everyone can see.

I hope one day

they do.

---

Elizabeth Alford (Hayward, CA) usually writes on her laptop, but in its absence will settle for her cell phone. A magna cum laude of CSU East Bay (B.A. English, 2014), she is still finding her place in the world. Recent and forthcoming publications appear online at the following venues: One Sentence Poems, Contemporary Haibun Online, the other bunny, & the cherita: your storybook journal.

I Will Try and Attempt by G David SchwartzI will try and attempt

Most anything to letBe be experiences except thisNot CannibalistI Never Did And Never Will by G David SchwartzI never did and never will eat poison mushrooms on purposeAnd if I see them is a dishI hope I will get distractedMy Wife Gets Mad At Me I Guess That Is Her Job by G David SchwartzMy wife gets mad at me, I guess that is her job When I tell me my Grand pa was the best cookThen my son-in-lawWhy ought I lear to cook.I Love Penguins by G David SchwartzI love penguinsThey are so preciousBut in a book on foodIt just sounds (still searching for an appropriate word meaning oh hell no way.)In The Serengeti by G David SchwartzIn the SerengetiI went with my friend FreddyWere we ate spaghettiFrom noon till time for beddie

Note: An earlier version of "I will Try and Attempt" appeared online via Creative Talents Unleashed (Dec 2015). G. David Schwartz is the former president of Seedhouse, the online interfaith committee. Schwartz is the author of A Jewish Appraisal of Dialogue (1994) and Midrash and Working Out Of The Book (2004), and is currently a volunteer at The Cincinnati J, Meals On Wheels. His newest book, Shards And Verse (2011) is now in stores or can be order online. "Names are not real people," he says.

A Short History of My Housekeeping by Melinda ClemmonsFirst apartment (grad school):I take vague swipes with a damp paper towelto thumbprints, cobwebs, decades-old grime.

Second apartment (marriage): I go from room to room, polishing corners,leaving the middles cluttered and dusty.Third apartment (California):I open windows to sunshine and eucalyptus!Who needs to clean?Fourth apartment (divorce):There is less to clean though the dust still settles.I plant narcissus, and tend it with devotion.Fifth apartment (new love):I clean, he cleans, we clean together.Afterwards, we sit on the deck with martinis in jam jars.Even my heart feels clean.First house (baby):I keep house with my thumbnail:scraping up bits of this and that from sinks and floorboards,the baby on my hip, flopping and laughing.This house (middle age):I fling the door wide, sweep toward the porch,let the breeze do the rest.

Melinda Clemmons lives in Oakland. Her stories and poems have appeared in The Cimarron Review, Kindred, Daphne Magazine, West Trestle Review, Eclipse, 300 Days of Sun, Cavalier, and The Monthly. She worked for over twenty years in programs serving children and youth in foster care, and is now a freelance writer and editor in the child welfare field. She is a frequent contributor to the online news site The Chronicle of Social Change.

The MadDAMN Butterfly by Ishtar-Lhotus Reiah ZeviarAn Existential InquiryThe generations of Life...Whisper like rippling memories,Colorful concoctions in the mind's eye

Streams of Imagination (Image-a-Nation)Feel the forms inform (INform) all my mortal sensations.Am I a person? And what is it to be a person?Or just a passing Data Transducing Waystation...For all these wondrous, wonderland, wavelength frequencies?And what makes me BE all that makes me ME?Momentums of "Monkey see...Monkey do."Collect enough Mass to call it CULTUREAnd make it something that everyone in the crew must pursue.And then review... And then renew...Hmmmmmmmmm...Meanwhile my many travels have shown methat we are all ultimately just variations on the same.Languages CAN translateAnd the rest are actually Accessories habitualizedwhich decorate like a frame...and can circumstantially be retrained.

(and rearranged or interchanged)What I want to KNOW is the Soul insideAs we traverse upon this planet,This incredible Sphere that we all ride.Each journey weaving and bobbing in the greater cosmic tides;Sometimes evolving and refining in crucibles of conflictwhere our characters are challenged and tried,and hopefully, eventually... purified.What I want to LEARN is how to Love & Be Loved,For this is what True Healthy Conscious Living is made of.All have been given ample Desire & Breath.So much to explore + sort through between each Birth and Death.But I have found so much Hate + so much Fear.And how it adds up Year after wounded, layering, compounding Year.Compassion comes from firsthand experience,But so does an unruly Vengeance.Ambivalent nowIn this Journey...this Quest...for True Healthy Living.If I embrace to face my worst,Can (and will) I then heal INTO my Best?I've become "The MadDAMN Butterfly"Seeking safer scenarios where I can momentarily restFar Away from whatever treats me like I'm justsome attractive but dangerous, bothersome pest.And maybe if the Cross Currents allow...We can all invest in wiser ripple effectsWhich will make us all (the) more sustainably,intergenerationally, favorably blessed.And isn't that what it's all really about...anyways?So much more than clique culture + competitivesOr simply impressing and being impressed.For on this Earth we ALL are guests.Thank You Divine Infinite Spirit.

Ishtar-Lhotus is a fourth generation Asian American originally from Pasadena, California. Her early years emphasized the eclectic lenses of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood and Sesame Street and Disney's "It's A Small World" through mixed church congregations, classrooms, campsites, babysitters, and frequent travels both nationally and globally. Consequently she is rooted in the positive potentials of the Virtual Village. She has a degree in Theology and Liberal Arts from Ambassador College, and continues to pursue interests in Spirituality, Metaphysics and Healing Art modalities. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area she received a certificate in Sound, Voice, Music Healing from CIIS California Institute of Integral Studies. She has also shared in performance as a singer, songwriter, keyboardist, hand drummer, dancer/choreographer, gymnast, cheerleader/group stunts, swimmer/diver, choir alto, storyteller, visual artist/crafter/sewing, character model, movie extra, videomaker + talent. She loves to celebrate the universality of Humanities through the Arts, and so her poetry often processes and echoes a wide range of this human experience.

LIFE LIGHT REMEMBERED by Tureeda Mikell, Story Medicine Woman

We are soldiers on
the battlefield

With life light in
our eyes.” Said Sis Sonja

1994 Tribune
calls

Ask,

“How many guns did
you have at the

George Jackson
Free Health clinic?”

How many guns?

Not how many
services were provided?

Not how many
programs were implemented

Not how many
doctors or healthcare workers volunteered.

Not even why we’d
care to put into practice such a program

With so many hospitals in our
community,

No, the reporter
didn’t ask any of that!

She asked how many
guns we had.

Not what illnesses
or diseases most affected

our communities or
how often we provided

Diabetes, sickle
cell and High blood pressure test if at all

Or what was my
field at clinic

Though I could
have told her my interest in certain

Grains to regain
genetic memory

But she was more
interested in,

How many guns we
had

Not who ran the
clinic or what hours and days

of the week we
were open

Or who was our
hero or sheroe to set about such a task

as managing a
clinic or what was assessed

that continues to
sustain community’s health needs today.

No, the reporter
asked

How many guns did
you have?

Late teens, 20
some thing Black women

Volunteered as
interns studied to become

Doctors, nurses
pharmacist, and therapist,

Did homework
between seeing patients

Black Drs. Tolbert
Smalls & Eddy Newsome

Were volunteer
staff physicians

Tried to reverse
curse of drug addictions

Purposefully
placed in neighborhoods

to weaken Black
power base

Developed programs
to neutralize drug threats

Opened methadone
program believed

at that time would
eradicate heroin

Took vital signs,
did sickle cell test,

Tested for
Diabetes,

Kept patient
records

Organized charts,
med room, pharmacy

Gave better care than
Kaiser dared

Held life light in
our eyes,

Books our bullets,
educationally armed

Knowledge our
right to fight through labeled walls

imprisoning us as violent, drug infested gun
carrying,

sex crazed
ignorant jigga boos.

Kwame Ture warned
us,…

”we must be
politically prepared for what is coming.

We have no
choice. The revolution is coming

whether you want
it or not.

How many guns did
we have?

“We were soldiers
on the battlefield with

Life light in our
eyes.” Said Sis. Sonia

Tureeda
Mikell Aka Toreadah, Story Medicine Woman, is an award winning poet, called
activist for Holism, by Native Palestinian.
South African Professor at Cal State Long Beach called her a Woman Of
Truths. Ngugi wa Thiongo renown author
and professor called her the Word Magician. Published nationally and internationally, audience
member said “ Tureeda is hell bent on asserting life!”

Live Human Target by Mimi Gonzalez

Coney Island boardwalk
attraction no skill

point a paint gun

plastic ducks

bulls eye targets

bottles or cans

a young man

called “Shoot the Freak”

dark-skinned, curl hidden, close-shaved

island cousin PR|DR

“He’s a freak! Shoot
that freak!” barker eggs on another
young man pins

gun to
his shoulder aims

abandoned lot strewn with refuse

55 gallon drums

bar-stools garbage cans

pallets piled up

the shooter’s buddies pat his back

without touching him

respect his focus

“You got this bro.”

“Get ‘im.”

I squeeze up to the front
line the “freak” wears a
white Tyvek painter suit

yellow splotches his right shoulder and left kidney

he runs from the can with a radioactive symbol

crouches under the plywood pile on the right

maybe it’s because his shift’s just started

maybe he’s never actually been in the yard

His eyes meet mine in a
flash

shared shame

flintlocks our eyes

salt and iron well in my mouth

He knows

I’m afraid

too

Mimi Gonzalez-Barillas (emerging Noemi Rose) is a romantic feminist who aims to battle the cynicism of this too human world through a poem or a punchline. She's a seasoned comedian who's traveled the world to make audiences laugh including US troops from Iraq to Japan plus national Prides, Womyn's music festivals and cruises and television appearances. Throughout her years on the road, poems emerged among the jokes in her journals and now offers itself as Dream B. She is a candidate for an MFA from Mills College in May 2018 and feels she’s earned a bonus degree and offers her eternal gratitude for all she’s learned from the brilliant and beautiful Oakland literary community.

Thought you had toDrove a car nearly that longEngaged all the issuesRace relations, wars, missilesSubmarines, working placesProgress and regress withinVarious bureaucraciesYou knew how big the job wasAnd how few turningsSeem to occurAny volto toward resolutionThe neat sonnetBut you were gladThat you had worked towardThe dimensions of fairnessEven in radical boardroomsYou were always clear headedInsistent and alertThe glad effort; since childhoodThinking now of the few ridesI gave you to meetings, some meaningfulAnd the thousands you must haveSat in on before thatYour daughter Carol, saying“her indomitable spirit”Your monumental effort and energySing praise to that!For Marj Swann (1921-2014)
Britt Peter was born in the North Arm of Indian Valley in 1938. His parents moved to the Bay Area at the start of World War II and he has been living here off and on ever since. Britt has loved poetry in all forms for most of his life, starting with Burl Ives, his grandmother’s songs and Carl Sandburg. Among the artists, poets and musicians he has known and admired are Juan Silva, Jim Gray, Kenneth Rexroth, Carol Tinker, Lloyd J. Reynolds, the Alexander brothers, Jack Spicer, Gene Fowler, Welton Smith, Bob Stephens, Don Cobb, Karl Shapiro, Lee Bartlett, Willie Van Ness, and Jack Gilbert. The richness of their lives and art brushed against him and often matched or fueled his own internal growl. Britt’s poems have appeared in The Intransigent Voice, Blue Collar Review, Jerry Jazz Musician, Poetry Now and the California Quarterly He and his son Alexander Peter have filmed and presented over thirty poems on YouTube. Britt can be reached at forestpeter6@hotmail.comGhost Jaguars by Mary Mackeyby day you told us the dead crouch in the junglearms wrapped around their kneesheads down blindliving in a great bluenessthat expands to the horizonlike an infinite ocean

at night they riseand hunt ghost jaguarsdrink the black drinkfuck the treeswe threw your yopo seeds on the groundand trampled thembegged you to come back to usbut you had already eaten your godsgone hunting with the deadseen the sun rise and gone blindMary Mackey is the author of 7 collections of poetry including Travelers With No Ticket Home (March Hawk Press, 2014) and Sugar Zone (Marsh Hawk Press 2011), winner of the 2012 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence. Mackey’s poems have been praised by Wendell Berry, Jane Hirshfield, Dennis Nurkse, Ron Hansen, Dennis Schmitz, and Marge Piercy for their beauty, precision, originality, and extraordinary range. Garrison Keillor has featured her poetry four times on his program The Writer’s Almanac. In Fall 2018, Marsh Hawk Press will publish her new collection: The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams: New and Selected Poems by Mary Mackey 1974 to 2018. Mary is also the author of 14 novels, several of which have made The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller Lists. You can read more of her poetry at https://marymackey.com, connect with her on Twitter @MMackeyAuthor, find her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/marymackeywriter/, and sign up to get copies of her quarterly newsletter.

NOOR SALMAN---MANY FOR THE PRICE OF ONE by Garrett Murphy

In the wake of a horrible
tragedy in Orlando

where numbers were murdered
and more were wounded

the Law-and-Orderies,

unable to deliver their brand
of justice to the real assailant

who had slain himself,

somehow realize they actually
had a smorgasbord waiting in the wings---

Garrett Murphy, a political and human nature satirist, lives in Oakland, CA, and has written several chapbooks of poetry and prose.

09/11/2017 – 8:00 am by Jennette DeBoine

It’s hot! And I’m hungry...And tent cities increase in size and occurrence while we talk of war, sanctions, deployment and deportation... all at the same timeWhole nations are underwater. Pestilence of our own making sickens survivors. Children and old people curl up and die by the side of the road but we don’t hear their plight for we have our own disasters...our own miseries...so we dismiss their plight as hoax – or nationalism – or patriotism –whatever!Roads close... Airways fill with static created by hysteria. The face of feigned ignorance turns its traditional blind eye while clichés come home to roost...Evangelicals lay hands on common thieves. The exorcism aborts far short of success. Frantic...we open the good-book and flip pages. Meanwhile, dreams and Dreamers ponder their rubble-covered countrymen as they brace themselves for another xenophobic storm surge... And the people draw closer...Mapping ways to possibility...Blazing trails to the future... Pooling and preparing...It’s the only way!

Untitled

by Jennette DeBoine

I put the earth to bed
in all her splendor
I turned out the light
and bade her rest

I patted her back
to soothe her tensions
I sang her a love song
for all she's been through

I listened to her sighs
until I couldn't stand it
I fell on my knees
and led the world in prayer

Jeannette DesBoine admits to being “possessed by the love of words and haunted by the spirit of the printed page.” The University of Texas @ El Paso alumna describes herself as an English teacher by education, a writer by definition, and a poet with a passion for theater and spoken word. See more at https://www.amazon.com/author/jeannettedesboine

"Wanna-be mobBuster""Knife-swinqinqNutter""Deserved to get surroundedBy heat-holding cops""Deserved to get groundedWith 21 shots"ButThese are portrayalsThey want you to knowThese are portrayalsThey want to showBased on derogatoryStereotypesGrist for the millOf tough-on-crime hypeHalf the city Went ballisticOver cop murderSadisticOn paper,We're statisticsNever get thisTwisted"Street thug" imageAdds to the tensionThe reformed ex-prisonerNever gets mentionedNot the smiling sweetheart,Not the mother's sonThey concentrate on "the menace""Beast without a gun"But These are portrayals They want you to knowThese are portrayalsThey want to showBased on derogatoryStereotypesGrist for the millOf tough-on-crime hypeHe made no sudden moves,But they made him diePolice and papersUnify to crucifyA troubled youngster Suckers had to play GodRacial deathVia interracial death squadSuppose I got met up & lit up By the bill?Would the press call me a thug?Probably will!Folks swallowing official Stories get played!If you were gunned down tomorrow,How would you be portrayed?[ For Mario Woods—1989-2015. ]Dee Allen. African-Italian performance poet currently based in Oakland, California.Active on the creative writing & Spoken Word tips since the early 1990s. Author of 3 books [ Boneyard, Unwritten Law and Stormwater] and 14 anthology appearances [ Poets 1 /: 2014, Feather Floating On The Water,the first 4 Revolutionary Poets Brigade Books, Rise and Your Golden Sun Still shines, to name several under his figurative belt so far.

Georgette
Howington is a UC Davis California Naturalist of the Mt. Diablo Region. Her poems are published in Iodine, Sleet, Poeming
Pigeons, among others. Her poems won
Honorable Mentions at the North American Women’s Music Festival, Ina Coolbrith
Poetry Contest in 2016 and the Benicia Love Poem Contest 2018. As a horticulturist, her niche is Backyard
Habitat and secondary-cavity nesters.
She is a County Coordinator and the Assistant State Program Director for
the California Bluebird Recovery Program and an activist in the conservation
community in the SF Bay Area for over 30 years.
Georgette is also a published garden and environmental writer.

In the Age of Innocence,by
Michael Caylo-Baradi

I’m
partial to the beauty of the city, each time

you muscle
me with tales mustering us

into a
glow faint as distant stars. We restore tears

in this
sanctum, and use the body to weep,

and sweat
into beads, into rosaries, into sorrows

and
lamentations. We kneel for the

satisfaction
of prayers here, and engorge our

throats
with mutinies against shadows

that curve
dreams into the clarity of street-lights.

Then, we
slang midnights around vowels

and code
them with conditions glammed up for

a
kaleidoscope of addictions. But never

forget I
gave you the power of porn, to help you

find
yourself, balling for roomier positions

in the
neon caves of gluttony. You are still a child

in the
logic of dissonance accruing acres of skin.

You do not
have the grace of animals yet. You

gobble up surrender, the way religions crucify their myths.This poem first appeared in Eunoia Review.Michael Caylo-Baradi's work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Galway Review, Blue Fifth Review, Blue Print Review, The Common (online), Eclectica, elimae, Eunoia Review, FORTH, Galatea Resurrects, In the Name of the Voice, Ink Sweat & Tears, Local Nomad, MiPOesias, Otoliths, Our Own Voice, poeticdiversity, Philippines Free Press, Poetry Pacific, Prick of the Spindle, and elsewhere. An alumnus of The Writers’ Institute at The Graduate Center (CUNY), he has also written reviews and essays for New Pages, PopMatters, and The Latin American Review of Books.

That’s Me in that Song by Jim BarnardIt’s been a long, long story. I’ve watched you rise to fame,the concerts no-one came to

and how you took the blame.Your headaches in the morning,cheap wine bottles by the bed,combing the beach for sand-dollars,‘bout the only kind we had.You’d throw driftwood in the wavesand Frodo would go crashing throughretrieving them with his lab smile,good therapy for both of you.You always loved my body,my hair long and blowing.I’d go to work and you to practice,our love alive and glowing.Lord, how I know,that’s me in that song.My, my, how things do change,cheap wine to speed and cocaine.Toronto to Boston to New York,I’m lucky if I see you on the plane.Kids screaming and panting over you,their breasts swinging in your faceas they ask for autographs and more.Looks like fame done took my place.You’re a diamond or a clown to them. Investment or amusement,surely not a real man.They don’t know your anthem.And you don’t either anymore.Your poetry’s gone from depth to jivebut what to hell, another line of cocaine,another million plays, you’ll say its live.and I still remember,that’s me in that song.Well its raining. I’m on the road again. ‘Cept this time, I’m the one who’s driving.These wipers were never worth a damn.Today they’re worse, I guess I’m crying.I turn on the radio,and what a cryin’ shame.It’s you, and don’t you know you're singingthe song that brought you fame.That’s how I used to be. That’s me in that song.I’m turnin’ off the radioand snuffin’ out my cigarette.That’s two more habitsit’s way past time to quit.It’s not that I don’t love you -god knows I do.It’s just I lost myselfin lovin’ you.That’s me in this song. Yes, that’s me in this song.Jim Barnard, a transplant from the California/Mexico borderlands, a social worker/therapist working with and for kids and their families and a union activist by trade, a grandfather of the most precious 2 year old in the world in retirement, and through it all, a poet and short story writer.

The Abyss by Kelliane
Parker

It is a beautiful day, only you aren’t part of any of it

I see you contemplating the water’s edge and you begin to
walk slowly out into the water

I watch at first unconcerned, then I hold my breath and wait
for what I know is coming

You walk slowly, intentionally, not stopping, until you pass
the first and then second break

I start yelling, telling you not to go out any further but
you aren’t listening

You just keep moving farther away from shore, until a large
wave grabs you and pulls you further out

And I’m yelling for help and people jump in and paddle out

And I swim to where you are and you go under just before I
reach you, but you don’t fight it

This strange force pulls me down too. I fight and struggle to get to you

And the bubbles go up toward the light to freedom

But you and I? We
keep going down, down, down into the abyss

Where the light starts to fade and the sound is muffled

I try to reach you, but you just give me that look that
says, "it’s too hard"

And my lungs feel like they are going to burst, but all I
see in you is resignation

But I won’t stop

I can’t stop

I won’t

And the bubbles go up toward the light to freedom

But you and I, we keep going down, down, down into the abyss

Where the light is just a speck at the surface and all I
hear are the sounds of my own struggle

And the rescuers busy themselves in a flurry of activity at
the surface

And I, I negotiate with god, trading everything to bring you
back

And the bubbles go up toward the light to freedom

But you and I, you and I, you and I don’t

Kelliane Parker Works in a hard-tech start up at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, and teaches marketing and public relations at the Academy of Art University. She and her partner, Poet E Spoken, are co-founders and co-hosts of My Word Open Mic, in Berkeley. Kelliane is a life-long activist for gender equity, fighting global poverty and an outspoken voice for survivors of sexual assault. More recently, she has begun to tackle stigma around mental illness, wellness and disorders. For more information go to www.mywordopenmic.com.

Those Were Strange Timesby Bruce Bagnell

The
giant Golden Buddha serene

in the
dirty room.

Outside,
eroded stone heads

atop
the ancient temple;

beggars
lining the streets

of
lemon grass and tapioca rot

near the
jungle’s edge.

Siren
songs of missiles and ach-ach fire

took
many to death.

We,
the still-flesh,

conquered
by Nam’s disease,

slowly
yielded to Medusa,

our
souls turned to stone

Those
were strange times,

three
dead crashed into the water supply,

and we
talked about stagnant, pukey toilets.

Death’s
intrusion not allowed.

Singha
was our aphrodisiac

in
this remarriage of men to chaos,

the
beer poured into our deep throats

as we
worshiped a glass-cased phallus.

Gilded,
oversize, It waited for offerings behind

the
Takhli Air force Base Officer’s Club bar.

At
night, wasted, two F-4 pilots

rolled
for drinks on a floor of broken bottles –

a
celebration of nihilism in a shapeless feral heap

screaming
at darkness’ rebirth,

cuts
welcome,

an
awakening on the ground.

Awaking
over and over

at
mach one, the plane screaming,

five
G’s in the avoidance turn,

drop-button
hit,

bombs away,

killing little men

on
orders from some remote office.

You
never saw

the Buddha,

the little men,

yourself.

Lifetimes
later that unfortunate first awakening rumble of tears

shoved
down inside, turning to jungle rot.

Can you afford to see

The orange robes

blossom red again?

You
never understood

the big golden belly in the
dirty incense filled temple

but
you see the way of their lives

blown
up again and again.

In the
end the ultimate destruction

was of
you.

A Visit to Clair Island by Bruce Bagnell

We were on
Clair Island,

the mist in
heavy upon the raspberry lane.

Climbing
down there was foxglove in the hedgerows,

the outline
of a building grayed,

fog washed
into half vision.

We stood
looking back to the sea.

A bird in brush

sang police
whistle songs

near an old
quay

limpets showed
high tide way up the rocks,

a seal caught
breath below in the narrow channel out.

You had
better know the rocks

like a fish
to bring a boat in here,

you had
better want this idyllic wet place

with its
steep hills, stone cottages and cows,

with its
jalopy cars, pieces hanging with fence wire,

all supplies
expensive coming off the boat.

We knew of a
husband of a friend who lived here,

inquired of
him to an innkeeper

to learn of
the three-chimney house on yonder hill.

We didn’t go
to see him,

the boat was
leaving in an hour and besides,

she had left
him years ago,

tired of the
smallness of this place,

mostly
nature to look after

unless you
wanted others all up in your business.

I’ll bet the
seals knew him, the cows for sure

and what of
her, did she ever know of him

in the
surprise of his move

to this
misty steep-hilled Island

or was this
another marriage built on myth

to be
dissolved by little things,

a calving at
three AM,

the
wind-driven wet-cold of the place,

bookstores
an hour’s ferry ride away?

This is what
we took back on the boat,

thoughts
about men and women slowly blown away.

We stood on
the deck, wind in our faces.

A seagull
used our ferry’s air-wake to glide behind,

the boat
tolerating the bird, a good marriage this time.

Bruce Bagnell has worked as a
cook, mechanic, and college professor; held various management positions
including running a car dealership; and was a USAF captain in Vietnam. Now
retired, along with writing he is a Poetry Express Berkeley host. He has been
published inOmniVerse,The
Scribbler,The
Round, Blue Lake Review, Crack the Spine, Chaparrel, Oxford Magazine,
Diverse Voices Quarterly, Studio1, Westview Magazine, Zone 3, the Griffin, The
Burningwood Literary Journal, Poetalk, Tower Journal, Glassworks Magazine, The
Alembic, Juked, and
The Cape Rock among other
publications or online postings. His poetry book, “The Self-Expression Spa,” is
just out from Sugartown Publishing.

What May Not Be DiscardedbyPenelope Thompson

Long, forceps-like pinchers and large garbage bag in hand,

I walk the perimeter of my block. Sometimes I mutter,

shake my head, sometimes just keep going. Nothing

surprises me now: forlorn condoms, wilted on the grass;

six pack containers; bottles in brown bags, some murky

liquid lingering at the bottom; peel-off advertisements

for carpet cleaning; fruit rinds; photos of a missing pet,

offers of reward; ubiquitous q-tips--the drug users’ aid;

leaflets threatening the end of the world,

the need for repentance; and always,

dog shit, humid-fresh or petrified grey.

Today I round the corner, see

six plastic bottle caps on the sidewalk,

coded red, yellow, green, awkward

to pick up. I pincher each part-way

to the bag, drop some again. Nearby a man

of uncertain years, in knee-worn pants, soiled shirt,

holds six empty plastic bottles without caps.

He watches my grab-hold technique.

When I maneuver the last cap to the bag,

pleased with myself, he steps closer, looks at me,

says, Gracias, places the bottles in my bag.

I say Por nada, both of us formal.

He holds up his hand to stop

my departure, bends to the pavement,

gathers a sodden clump of paper, places it

in my now half-full bag, steps back, gives me

so broad a smile, I must smile back. Gracias, I say.

Por nada, he replies.

Penelope Barnes Thompson hails from New York by way of a 39 year stint in Los Angeles and has recently relocated to Oakland. She is a retired clinical psychologist, now a Buddhist chaplain . She has published a book of poetry, Deconstructing the Nest and Other Poems and is finishing a manuscript for her second book. Her poems have been published in several journals and she has been a featured poet in Tiger's Eye Journal. One of her favorite activities is learning new words and checking our their origins. She is known to have been lost for days.